Matthew Vickery is a Scottish conflict journalist based in Iraq, Syria and Palestine. Over the past four years, he’s reported on the complex political and civic situations facing natives of the Middle East as well as the implications this modern war has for the people at home.

He’s written for Vice, the Sunday Herald, the Middle East Eye and the Scotsman, and in January of this year Franchesca Hashemi caught up with Matthew during a short trip home to investigate what life is like for a writer with his ‘boots on the ground’.